Canning, Jamming, Crafting & Cooking…always up to something

Tomato Butter

September 10, 2010

I have made this recipe twice, based off of Food in Jar’s recipe. I varied the recipe slightly the first time, and made a simpiler version for the second round. The biggest difference was really in the yield based on Roma tomatoes versus slicing tomatoes, despite the fact that they both cooked in the crock pot for a similar span of time. 5 pounds of Roma tomatoes yielded 2 pints and one 1/2 pint (at a cost of $2.50 per pint). 4 pounds of slicing tomatoes were much waterier and yielded three 1/2 pints (these tomatoes came from my CSA, and so in my mind I consider to be free, as I paid for them long ago in March.

Begin with the basics of tomatoes: peeling them.

1.) Core the tomato and slice along the sides

2.) Boil tomatoes until you can see the skin peeling away, as pointed out (menacingly) by my knife

5.) Cook for 16 hours in the crock pot, with the lid propped open with a chop stick

For the first batch, I added garlic cloves and fresh rosemary.

I modified the recipe both times.

Batch 1: I added 6 garlic cloves and 4 sprigs of rosemary. In my mind, I would then just pick out the rosemary, but all of the needles fell off of the stem while cooking. I could pick out the stems easily, but getting the rest out proved tricky. Next time, I will mince the leaves before I add them. Also, the garlic basically disintegrated, so I mashed it up into the tomatoes. From there, I followed foodinjar’s recipe.

Batch 2: I added the same amount of garlic, but none of the other ingredients. Instead of mixing the lemon juice into the tomatoes, I added 1/2 tbsp. per jar to make sure each jar had enough. To the tomatoes, I added 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. cumin and 1/4 tsp. nutmeg. A more subtle flavor, which I might use in roasted meat dishes.